Ableton Forum

So been looking this up but don't get a definitive answer. So... how do I measure the TOTAL plugin buffer delay. Not individual tracks or plugins but the total amount added to the entire project. All my tracks are going to the main buss.
Not talking about system hardware i/o delay.

This should be easy right?

Chr0mat1c wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 24, 2026 9:04 am

This should be easy right?

Sure, you take the latency value from the track that has the largest latency, and you had the amount of latency from devices on your Main track.

Great so I just look at the last plugin in the chain and look for the largest value.
I expect this to be my master buss. Not in the studio right now but seem to remember I did not see the latency values of plugins on the master buss.
cheers

Chr0mat1c wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 24, 2026 2:49 pm

Great so I just look at the last plugin in the chain and look for the largest value.

That's not what I said, but maybe I wasn't clear.
Think about it:
every tracks run in parallel and sum up to the Main track, which one outputs to your speaker.
So you have to account for:
- the track that is the most "delayed" (i.e which has the most latency), since there's no point in adding the smaller latency from other tracks which by definition are less "delayed" - they have enough time to treat their latency compared to the track with the most latency.
- and since the signal pass through the Main track before being heard, you need to add the Main track's latency to this "most delayed" track to get the total latency caused by plugins.

In other words: you check the total latency for every track; you keep the largest value only; and then you calculate the Main track's latency; and finally you add those 2 values.

Thanks for this. I did not know you have to add the master buss onto the highest value.

Ableton actually knows what the total latency is. You would think that there was a more direct way than searching around and then adding up values. Like it could just tell you somehow.

+1
Especially for people who go back and forth between recording live instruments and mixing, it would be such a time-saver to have total set latency shown (perhaps next to the CPU monitor). Also a switch to temporarily disable all non-zero latency devices would be great.